1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field network management and more specifically to managed of devices using the HTML protocol.
2. Description of the Related Art
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) has been the protocol of choice for managing internetworking devices. FIG. 1 illustrates prior art management of a device using SNMP. In FIG. 1, a managed device 101 executes an SNMP agent 102 and communicates over a connection 105 using SNMP with a network management station (NMS) 103 which is also executing an SNMP manager 104.
Despite relatively widespread implementation of SNMP managed devices such as device 101, network management station software (and stations executing such software), e.g. station 103 may be unavailable, difficult to maintain or of limited capabilities.
Thus, it has become desirable to utilize hypertalk markup language (HTML) to facilitate communication between the managed device and the management device. FIG. 1(b) illustrates an implementation of this technique. As is illustrated in FIG. 1(b), a HTTP web browser 115 is used to manage the device 101 over an HTTP network 116. The device 101 includes an HTTP server 113 which communicates with an SNMP agent. In this way, existing SNMP agent code can be utilized while still allowing management using an HTTP browser. Unfortunately, this implementation requires web pages to be constructed and stored at the device 101 for each function to be managed. While this solution may be workable for some devices, other devices may have more limited storage capability. An example, may be cable modems and the like which have relatively limited storage capability.
A third approach is illustrated by FIG. 1(c). In this implementation, a network management system 103 includes an HTTP server 121 which communicates over a HTTP network 116 with a HTTP web browser 115. The network management system also includes a SNMP manager 104 which communicates with an SNMP agent 102 executing on the managed device. Thus, management using HTML web pages is achieved by providing a level of indirection between the managed device 101 and the managing web browser 115. Storage requirements at the managed device are reduced because the web pages themselves are stored at the network management system 103.
While the implementation of FIG. 1(c) overcomes certain of the issues discussed in connection with FIG. 1(b), the level of indirection required by this implementation leads to certain complications.
Thus, what is desired is an improved method and apparatus for allowing management of network devices using HTML.
A method and apparatus for providing communication between a first device and a second device in a network. In the described embodiment, it is desirable to allow communication from the first device using HTTP requests. It is further desirable to limit storage and other operational requirements imposed on the second device. Thus, the second device utilizes an HTTP relay to relay HTTP requests from the first device to a web server where the requests are serviced. Any needed information from the second device, for formulating an HTTP response, is obtained by the web server using SNMP requests.